Branding

Hell was invented in an Edinburgh pub in late 2009, over a bottle of Glenfiddich 21.

“Dude, can’t be done. People aren’t that dumb.”

“Seriously.” Gabriel leaned forward. “I know this guy who works in Saatchi and Saatchi. It’s all branding.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “So, we just arbitrarily assign a load of us some scary name, and say ‘oh look aren’t they bad’. Regardless of… facts.”

“Yeah.” Gabriel snorted. “Hey, let’s make Lucy their king!”

“Free will, dude. Not happening.”

“Free, but pliable.”

“Next round says you’re wrong.”

“Done.”

Gabriel vanished, then reappeared. Michael readjusted to the timeline.

“Damn.”

—–

This article turned up in my Facebook feed, and that inspired this one. Language affecting how we think is fairly well-documented – back in uni I did a presentation on how to teach maths to people whose number system was entirely relative – and if you want to see an example closer to home, you don’t need to look further than Strivers and Scroungers.